U R 2 STUPID 4 UR OWN GOOD

Above: A Skoda being run over by a tank.

A few years ago, Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt wrote a book called Freakonomics. In it, there is a chapter dedicated to the socioeconomic patterns of naming children. It discusses the frequency of first names in relation to race and economic status of Californians in the 1990s. It's a good book, but the point here is that a lot of Americans have some pretty stupid names. There are normal names, there are creative or rare but imaginative or cool names, and then there are stupid names. This line is usually drawn with some degree of personal opinion in mind: I, for example, find the names Roshanda and Shaniqua funny, but that probably makes me a racist. Similarly, in certain parts of the world, the name Mercedez is clearly chosen because of the car company, which I find ridiculous, but that's just me. I am white, and from a comfortable background, and I don't think I know anyone named after a car. Perhaps for this reason, I don't plan on calling any of my children Skoda, Seat or Jaguar.... actually maybe Jaguar, that sounds kinda badass.

Link to list of American Names

Well, despite America having a well-deserved reputation for being the King of Stupid, it has been safely out-stupified by New Zealand. About a year ago I remember reading that a couple had been denied the option of naming their baby 4Real. That's right, 4Real. With a 4. Like an RnB song title from the nineties. According to the BBC - which spares no chance to make other countries look as retarded as possible, in a futile attempt to excuse the actions of some of its own populace - "Mum and Dad decided to call their son 4Real after seeing an ultrasound image of him. It was then they realised that their baby was 'for real'." So really, it should have been called Baby U R 4Real. Although, I presume the vast majority of ultrasounds result in this realisation, so the parents maybe could have prepared themselves for it, and come up with some back-up names. Imagine the doctor performing the ultrasound, going very quiet and lowering his head, before carefully announcing: "I'm so sorry, but a plastic replica of a fetus seems to have somehow found its way into your womb. In other words, your baby is 4Fake."

Turns out Pat "R U in 2 it" and Sheena "Wot R U up2" Wheaton had a "Plan B" name up their sleeve after all. The poor kid is now called Superman. Although, for the record, he will still be referred to as 4Real by his white trash parents. I can imagine the playground conversations to come: 

"Hey kid, we're playing superheroes, who are you, mate?"

"I'm Superman, but I wanna be Batman, bru."

"You can't be both! Pick one, mate"

"But I AM Superman... 4Real, bru"

"What, mate?"

"I'm 4Real guys... Superman 4Real!... bru"

"What the fuck, mate? Who is this asshole?"

*beatdown ensues*

OK so I wanted it to be clear they were kiwis, but the moral is still clear: this kid is in for a world of pain in his preteen years.

And it seems it's probably someone's actual job in NZ to stop rednecks from calling their kids horrible names: "In the past, [the authorities] have had to intervene to stop parents naming their offspring Satan and Adolf Hitler." This seems funny, until you realize that we're talking about real people. Real people who, despite their obvious lack of intelligence, somehow managed to successfully copulate and produce offspring, and once their primary instinctual goal of reproduction has been reached, they go and fuck it all up by calling the baby Adolf Hitler Mistake "Daddy didn't pull out in time" Smith.

Which brings us round to today's most-read story on the BBC News website

Some NZ kid wants to change her name... why, you ask? Because she's called Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii. The judge, outraged, claimed that calling a child this a social handicap. And I fail to see how anyone could object to that. Here are a list of other names that have been banned, in addition to Satan and Adolf Hitler:

Yeah Detroit

Keenan Got Lucky

Sex Fruit

Toilet

Fat Boy

Fish and Chips

Marriage Ruiner

(I added two that I made up for effect, can you spot them?!)

But surely far worse, here are some names that these authorities have actually allowed human beings to be called legally:

Violence

Benson and Hedges

Midnight Chardonnay

Number 16 Bus Shelter

...if you're out there, Number 16, and you have not yet tried to flee your country, do so immediately. Unless the Number 16 Bus Shelter is inside the nicest hotel in Australasia, no one deserves to be named after such a place, especially not when it's the location that I'm guessing they were conceived in. For shame, New Zealand, for shame.